Category: China

It is amazing to me that something so insecure was used to communicate with spies in Iran and China.  The US military gets non-stop information security training about using commercial websites and social media and here is American intelligence agencies operating an entire spy network on one:

Dozens of American spies were killed in Iran and China after a flawed communications service that allowed foreign foes to see what the agents were up to using Google, official sources have claimed.

Between 2009 and 2013 the US Central Intelligence Agency suffered a “catastrophic” secret communications failure in a website used by officers and their field agents around the world to speak to each other, according to a report in Yahoo News, which heard from 11 former intelligence and government officials about the previously unreported disaster.

“We’re still dealing with the fallout,” said one former national security official. “Dozens of people around the world were killed because of this.”

The internet-based communications platform was first used in the Middle East to communicate with soldiers in war zones and had not been intended for widespread use but due to its ease of use and efficacy, it was adopted by agents despite its lack of sophistication, the sources claimed.

Cracks only began to show when Iran, angered that the government under Barack Obama had discovered a secret Iranian nuclear weapon factory, went out with a fine tooth comb to find moles.

It discovered the existence of one of the websites used by US agents using Google. US officials believe that Iranian spies were able to use Google as a search tool to find secret CIA websites, unbeknown to those using them.

By 2011, Iran had infiltrated the CIA spy network and in May it announced that they had broken up a 30-strong ring of American spies.

Some informants were executed and others imprisoned as a result, the sources claimed.

This was corroborated by a report on ABC news at the time, which referred to a compromised communications system after a tip off from the CIA.

China violated Korea Air Defense ID zone (#KADIZ) w fighters in the article, but also reconnaissance aircraft. 2017: 10 times. 2018 thus far: 110 times.https://t.co/FaywAKFGB7

— Tara O (@DrTaraO) October 22, 2018

It is about time that something was being done about China’s economic espionage activities:

US agents have arrested a top Beijing intelligence official for allegedly attempting to steal trade secrets from GE Aviation and other US aerospace companies after luring the suspect to Belgium in what the US Justice Department called “an unprecedented extradition”.

Xu Yanjun, who also uses the names Qu Hui and Zhang Hui, was extradited to the US on Tuesday with assistance from Belgian authorities for seeking “to steal trade secrets and other sensitive information from an American company that leads the way in aerospace”, Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers said in a Justice Department announcement on Wednesday.

Xu, a senior officer with China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), appeared in federal court in Cincinnati on Wednesday, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported. He could be given a prison sentence of up to 25 years in addition to fines if charged and convicted, the Justice Department said.

“Beginning in at least December 2013 and continuing until his arrest, Xu targeted certain companies inside and outside the United States that are recognised as leaders in the aviation field,” the Justice Department said in its announcement of the arrest.

“He identified experts who worked for these companies and recruited them to travel to China, often initially under the guise of asking them to deliver a university presentation.”  [South China Morning Post]

You can read more at the link, but you would think that personnel working for defense contractors would understand that anyone approaching them from China and especially if they are inviting to them to China is likely an intelligence agent.  These companies need to do a better job protecting their intellectual property because this arrest is going to do nothing to slow down China’s economic espionage.

It looks like the Chinese are upping their reaction to the US Navy’s freedom of navigation patrols in the South China Sea:

Photos of an encounter between a Navy guided-missile destroyer and Chinese warship shed light on just how close the ships came to colliding Sunday in the South China Sea.

Naval website gCaptain.com published a series of photos Tuesday showing the USS Decatur and the People’s Republic of China destroyer Luyang passing each other during the confrontation. The Chinese ship appears to veer close to the Decatur before the U.S. ship pulls away to avoid a collision.

A Navy official confirmed to Stars and Stripes on Wednesday that the photos are legitimate, but said it is unknown how the website got access to the images, which were not publicly released.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but I hope the Navy has plenty of video cameras on board to record any possible collision.  This is because if a collision was to happen the Chinese would blame the US and then point to the Navy’s track record of two deadly collisions with civilian vessels in recent years.

With that said I doubt the Chinese would use one of their warships to collide with a US Navy ship.  I would suspect they would have one of their civilian vessels, like a fishing ship collide with a US Navy ship and then blame the US to anger public opinion within China against the US.

Sankei reports China conducted its own "decapitation exercise" targeting KJU's vacation homes, key nuke facilities and NK command centers. The training was conducted in April near NK border, after the 1st KJU visit but before the inter-Korean summit (4.27) https://t.co/5qV419tYHF

— Noon in Korea (@NoonInKorea) September 1, 2018

Central Asian countries—tied to the umbilical cord of Chinese money—have to bite their tongue and not speak out in the face of human rights abuses China is committing in Xinjiang. https://t.co/cVECfvWVUO

— Foreign Policy (@ForeignPolicy) August 31, 2018

After flying aircraft though the ROK ADIZ now the Chinese military is conducting naval drills off of the Korean peninsula.  I think it is pretty clear that the Chinese government is sending a message to the ROK government to continue to play nice with North Korea and don’t give into demands from the Trump administration:

China’s People’s Liberation Army naval forces have conducted two drills and plan another this week near the Korean Peninsula in a possible show of force, ahead of a planned inter-Korea summit in Pyongyang in September.

According to China’s maritime authorities on Thursday, the Chinese navy is to again conduct drills in its northeastern waters from Friday to Sept. 7, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported.

The Chinese continue to put military pressure on the ROK:

South Korea scrambled Air Force jets Wednesday to counter a Chinese military plane flying in the country’s air defense domain without notice, defense authorities in Seoul said.

It entered the Korea air defense identification zone (KADIZ) at around 7:37 a.m. and moved over southern and eastern waters for about four hours, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).

“(We) took normal tactical measures,” such as sending a warning message and dispatching Air Force jets to track and monitor it, the JCS added.

More than 10 aircraft, including F-15K fighter jets, were mobilized, a source said later.

It marked the second flight of a Chinese aircraft, believed to be for military reconnaissance, in the KADIZ in a month.

There were similar incidents in January, February and April as well.

South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense summoned the defense attache at the Chinese Embassy in Seoul to deliver a protest message.

Choi Hyong-chan, director general of the ministry’s international affairs, emphasized that the government takes the repeated entry of Chinese warplanes into the KADIZ “very seriously,” the ministry said.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but if the ROK government took the KADIZ violations seriously why don’t they respond by flying through the Chinese ADIZ?

Trump's incompetence is just mind-blowing. Anyone could have told you that the Chinese would hit back across issue-linkages if we targeted its export trade. Presumably they'll be tougher on the South China Sea too. Was there any US counter-planning for this near-certainty on /1 https://t.co/YXZSYaF1pI

— Robert E Kelly (@Robert_E_Kelly) August 24, 2018

The US Treasury Department is continuing to go after companies that violate sanctions against North Korea:

The United States imposed sanctions on a Russian port service agency and Chinese firms for aiding North Korean ships and selling alcohol and tobacco to Pyongyang in breach of U.S. sanctions.

The U.S. Treasury said in a statement on Wednesday that China-based Dalian Sun Moon Star International Logistics Trading Co. Ltd and its Singapore-based affiliate SINSMS Pte. Ltd had netted more than $1 billion a year by exporting alcohol and cigarette products to North Korea.

The department also sanctioned Russian-based Profinet Pte Ltd and its director general, Vasili Aleksandrovich Kolchanov, for providing port services on at least six occasions to North Korean-flagged ships.

Kolchanov was personally involved in North Korea-related deals and interacted directly with North Korean representatives in Russia, the department said.

“The tactics that these entities based in China, Singapore, and Russia are using to attempt to evade sanctions are prohibited under U.S. law, and all facets of the shipping industry have a responsibility to abide by them or expose themselves to serious risks,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in the statement.  [Reuters]

You can read more at the link.